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Crashing Xbox Kiosks
quannump writes "Gaming Age has an article up about some stores, including Toys R Us and Babbages, Xbox kiosk crashing at various places across the country. "Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says one Babbage's employee." It's funny because it's Microsoft. Get it? It's... oh never mind. Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
Wow! I've never seen *this* level before!
I must have fallen into some opaque blue liquid.
I hope I can swim to the top before I drown...
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
I was playing one at Software Etc on Saturday.
It was some car driving game. I played for about 5 minutes when I tried to restart the race. The box locked up solid.
Now I know it was probally getting abused but I dont't think that it should have done that.
And actually I wasn't that impressed by the graphics. I think my Tbird 1.4 with my Gforce 3 is much better
Putting them inside those enclosures probably isn't the best place for heat dissipation. I know if I put my PC in something like that it wouldn't last long.
I played the demo box at target. There were like 9 different demos that were just presentations, but there was at least one (the topmost option) that you could actually play... you had to run around and gather coins basically. It wasn't much of a game, being just a demo, but the controls were good and the graphics were cool. As long as the Xbox doesn't get a reputation for blue screen of deathing all the time.... i might consider buying one.
I say if the X-box is crashing this much it's pretty much DOA already.
--hongpong.com
Don't know if it's authentic though
Better the Xbox kiosk than a bank machine (I'm sure you've all seen the pictures)... or airport arrival/departure screens... or on ad billboards... or...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
As far as DOA goes, yeah, I think the X-Box is DOA.
A good friend of mine once said that if MS's development track record held up, that the X-Box would be a flop. To paraphrase, he said: "People don't expect their console to crash. If it does, they'll return it."
Now I know the PS2 had some backward-compatibility problems, but other than that, has it been rock-solid? I know I've never had so much as a hiccup from my Dreamcast.
My sigs always suck.
Taking out the Demo and blowing on it? Then they need to blow into the box itself before putting the demo back in. Then ya gotta hold down the reset button and sorta *tap tap tap* on the game, and it'll come on if you've got the "touch".
oh, wait. What? Oh, XBox. Right.
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
Out of the 20 gamers I know, about 19 of them are unwilling to purchase XBox simply because of Microsoft's good name.
While the OS on other game consoles ends up crashing occasionally too (in spite of the almost complete lack of a visible OS) they'd believe anything about the Microsoft one crashing anyway, without needing a demonstration.
Its almost a shame these people don't take their expectations of one complex computer system and attach them to another, like, say, a desktop.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
Hmm, perhaps they have not completed the required product activation ala WinXP :)
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
Heck, it better come out on ANYTHING in the near future. Halo was heavily billed as a Mac/PC game ever since it was unveiled, and ever since M$ gobbled Bungie up us keyboard users have taken a back seat to the X-box.
Current rumors suggest Halo for Mac/PC will be out several months after the X-box release.. to make sure M$ lures as many suckers into buying their POS console before farming the francise out.
>layable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units,"
>ays one Babbage's employee." It's funny because it's Microsoft. Get
>t? It's... oh never mind. Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
so far, DOA3 is only available at 3 of the 5 stores in the local area. After an hour or two, though, it's likely that DOA4 will arrive, with DOA5 applying by the end of the day . . .
:)
hawk
Being a long time gamer and a fervent computer user, I came to a decision about a month and a half ago.
I'm no longer going to use microsoft products in my home. My girlfriends computer is going to get a fresh install of Redhat in about two weeks and that should be the last of it.
The only shortfall to the whole thing has been the lack of mmog's to play under linux. I figure this will take a little time, but it'll get there eventually (most likely in the form of a game / games that play on all platforms..)
I went and bought a ps2 this summer, and some of the games coming out right now, Ico (SCEA) and Devil May Cry are absolutely stunning single player games. It will be interesting to see what happens when the net adapter and hard disk come out for the ps2, but in the meantime, based on principle I've made a few smaller decisions.
I won't be installing explorer 6.x+ ever (even at work), and I won't be buying an Xbox. Some of the stuff that Microsoft is doing with their licensing practices, as well as the shoddy quality of all their products since they were born just don't warrant rewards.
Then again, I'll most likely be one of those parents that spanks their kids as a disciplinary action as well, so maybe that just makes me a great big asshole.
Nobody should be siding with microsoft in any of their endeavors, I wonder why nobody is standing up and saying anything like this, now that MS is reaching into the gaming arena.
Still, it's rather humorous that some of the demo systems don't work, and people will still run out and buy them like lemmings.
-mh
Microsoft's version of sprituality:
"Double-click the lifestone to attune your spirit to the lifestone"
Newer game consoles are shipping with heatsinks and fans, items which weren't needed in previous generations of game systems. What's scary is that this is even though Sega and Sony have intentionally done things to keep power consumption down, like using lower power CPUs like the SH4 and MIPS and keeping the amount of memory reasonable.
Microsoft is putting in a hot running CPU that was never designed for embedded systems use and twice the memory of the PS2. Sure, that makes it more powerful in a way, but it also may be over the line in terms of what you can do inside of a sealed consumer box. Remember, "more powerful" has never been the mantra of embedded systems engineers, but "cool running" and "rock solid reliable" are.
My favorite Microsoft games are Minesweeper and Regedit.
Over at the Sony Playstation store, everything works all the time. (Most of the PS2 games suck, but that's a separate problem.)
The XBox runs a cut-down version of Win2K, which supports one multi-threaded application at a time, running in kernel mode. It may have been a mistake, to use the architecture of a desktop OS without the protection.
Maybe the X in X box really stands for MSX.
I have a feeling (due to the economy, et al) that MS may be looking at MSX part deux, except this time they're on the hook for the hardware as well. Even if the X-box is successful its gonna hit MS's bottom line for a year or so (to the tune of a billion or so). Add "reliability" problems to it and you can kiss it goodbye.
I wonder if after the christmas season it is not living up to expectation how long until MS kill it. It ain't cheap (subsidising each machine.. ask Sega), and the stench of death over a console machine is damn near impossible to overcome (even if you iron out bugs in the next batch of machines). Its not like its software and you can issue patches owners can download.
*IF* (and its a big if) this is a sign of things to come for the X-box (and I'll give MS the benifit of the doubt and say it isn't) could cost a LOT of money.
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(emphasis mine)
I'd like to see this confirmed first. However whichever way you look at it, it is pretty damn silly to have either a beta box or a buggy game running in shops.
I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that the one that does finally go into retail won't be as bad as this.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Did MS design the XBox's hardware? A bug in software is easily fixed with a patch, but what do they do when they find out the hardware is flawed? Or is there some process to eliminate hardware bugs before they wreak havoc? (I seem to remember one of Intels chips getting to market with bugs)
I was afraid to look at it because it was probably a EULA that would legally bind me to buy XBox games exclusively, and turn in all my Playstation games to the console Police (or something like that).
Demo kiosk units for modern game consoles usually have these problems, especially prerelease systems that use early hardware revisions. The crashing usually results from overheating caused by the machines running 24/7, in small enclosures with poor, if any ventilation. I have seen plenty of the old Dreamcast display units hung up and crashing to a black screen with a little text. It might also be due to the early software revisions in the machines.
Of course, anyone who had an old NES should remember that many of the system's games were very crash prone. I cannot begin to describe how many time I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crash, to the point that I knew what areas to walk away from when parts of the screen would become distorted...
All consoles have a central processor, a graphics chip, some sound hardware and memory. Just because it's 80x86 rather than PowerPC/MIPS/SH4 doesn't make any difference.
The big difference is that it's the only one using a stripped-down version of a PC operating system. Oh, and it has a hard drive.
The main thing that makes PCs so vulnerable to crashes is the huge variation in hardware. XBox doesn't have this problem as all XBoxes (at the moment) are all the same.
I'd personally like to assign a -2 penalty on any comment rated 'funny' because most of them frankly just aren't funny at all.
It's funny because it's Microsoft.
And people wonder why I always have to spell the name of the town I live in.
Anyway, Microsofts poor software has kept me employed for 5 years, and this is just reinforces that belief.
Matt
--
Interpret the BSOD - Coming soon to video game stores near you!
Publisher: Microsoft 2001
Retail: $79.95/year license
EULA: You agree to the terms inside the package by opening the package.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
If it's hanging/BSODing now, do you REALLY think anyone's going to buy off on it? (At least the demo units for the PS2 work well...) Yes, those are neato games, but there's always other companies out there willing to fill that void MS is making right now.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Here goes some precious karma
"Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says one Babbage's employee
That article describes 5 stores out of THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that have technical problems.
Think we are jumping the gun? Maybe its under super-scrutiny cause its microsoft, and people are taking advantage.
And the above quote (which will probably get that babbage's employee fired), is most likely an anti-MS/Linux Zealot out for blood against the X-Box. I don't see it very believable.
Lets wait for a few days AFTER they release the X-Box to kill it, k?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If that doesn't work try;
http://www.evilavatar.com/EA/News/M34018/6983.jpg
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If the XBox dosen't work we won't buy them
Only the first few will and they'll report how flaky they are.
If Microsoft pulls monopolistic moves and pushes the other game consoles off the market will we be compelled to buy X Box?
No..
Productivity tools are a need. It dosen't matter if the program crashes or dosen't work 90% of the time.. It's needed.
But on a game console.. thats a diffrent story.
Some people have jobs that suck most of the time. They do them anyway. They have to pay rent...
But nobody has a hobby that sucks most of the time. At least to them anyway.
If X Box isn't 100% great it's dead....
If Microsoft monopolises the market and crams the X Box the market dies with the X Box.
There is only one standard.. It must be fun.. if it's no fun it's dead...
I don't actually exist.
I can wait for the release on the Mac/PC. If I buy a console it will be a GameCube as the sort of games that come out on that platform don't generally come out on the PC. The XBox on the other hand will probably be compared most to a PC than a console, especially since I have a feeling that the games will be of similar quality. Of course time will be the ultimate judge and I will find out after 6 months of the XBox being on the shelf whether my current judgment is fair.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
There is the possibility that MS was well aware of the risks of improper ventilation and extended use of the console and instructed or advised software store companies of the proper storage and care for the kiosk units, but were ignored. Certainly not an uncommon occurance.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
weeks huh?
Im typing on a PC runnning windows 98SE that hasnt been rebooted in 2 months...
I also run a BBS on windows 98SE that, with the exception of the voluntary reboots, hasnt crashed on me since I built it in May
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It's not the crashing that I find so interesting, I mean it would be beating a dead horse to accuse Microsoft of releasing things that don't always operate as expected. What I think is strange is the lack of Microsoft branding in the promotional kiosks and posters I've seen. Taco Bell is running this huge promotion for the Xbox and there is no mention of Microsoft anywhere on the signage. I've seen a simmilar lack of the ubiquitous microsoft logo on the few kiosks displaying Xbox games and systems that I've seen. Given that I can't boot up Windows without seeing the Microsoft logo 10 times, this seems a little odd. Is it perhaps because we expect things like video game consoles not to crash? Are they trying to distance their reputation for blue screens and error messages from their entry into the console market? Ever remember rebooting your SNES because it just stopped working? Ever had to upgrade your Playstation because of buggy code? Me neither.
~raum
...that Microsoft stays out of the medical electronics industry. BSOD to the extreme.
"Microsoft technical support... can I help you?"
"Um, yeah. I was, like um, playing this game... and, uh, it like totally froze one me in the middle of a level? And then, like the screen turned all blue and junk, and all these really freaky little numbers and letters came up? And dude, it like totally SUCKS because I was RIGHT in the middle of a totally awesome part of this game, right?"
"Ok sir, can I please please have your CC # which will be billed $30 for this incident?"
"wha?"
"I need you credit card before I can issue a trouble ticket for this incident."
"...but it like totally crapped out on me, dude! I'm not gonna pay $30 bucks just to TALK to you?!"
"Sir, if Microsoft can determine that the fault does not lie on you end, you will be refunded your technical support incident fee."
"&*(%$# you #@&*$% " (click)
Ahh, those were the days.. We didn't just EXPECT our video games to work, if you wanted to play Punch out you had to EARN it! And if you didn't have the touch, well, you were still entertained by that flashing red light on the console! We didn't need 3D, we had a flashing red light! You kids have it easy.
The X-Box might still be a flop, but not because of stability. The first batch of PSXs was notoriously unstable (anyone remember having to flip the stupid things *upside-down* in order to keep them from freezing during cutscenes?) and older cart-based systems were prone to lockups as they collected more dirt - but people bought them just the same.
In this case, heat is the likely culprit; there simply isn't that much to go wrong just running a demo screen.
As for the market in general, consoles aren't a good way to make a lot of money. Even if the X-Box is a success, Microsoft will lose a ton subsidizing the hardware. And even if the X-Box becomes the dominant gaming console, it's unlikely that dominance will stay around for long since the business changes so rapidly.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Hey, it's just like every other MS product I've ever used!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It may be a good way to test the Xbox, but it's still a horrible blunder from a marketing standpoint.
What's your garden variety 12 year old boy going to say when he plays with an Xbox kiosk and it crashes? He's not going to say "Oh. A bug. I guess I'll contact Microsoft with the circumstances and error details." No, he's going to say "Dude, this sucks. I'm getting a PS2."
I take drugs seriously.
Fortunately there is a solution. Simply wait a few months. You will be able to download patches from the internet. The built in hard drive will allow these patches to work.
Whoo hoo, this is just what I've been waiting for to make my life complete! After a long day of work fixing Windows problems, I really want to come home to a video game console that has to have service packs downloaded and applied to it!
Thanks, but I think I'll stick with my older systems that just work. I never got a GPF or segfault while playing a frantic game of Kaboom! on my 2600 or Super Mario Brothers on my NES.
I can recall LOTS of cases where I've seen kiosks for other game consoles "down and out" so to speak. It's a pretty common occurence, really.
You have to think about the fact that these units sometimes have to put up with a lot of abuse when on public display. Yes, they're oftentimes enclosed in plexiglass and such, but that's not total protection.
On the other hand, I do know that these boxes run a good deal hotter than your average console, owing to increased "power". Taking that into account, a nice tight protective enclosure might not be such a great idea (I wouldn't try sealing my box up in a tight space and running it 24x7 either).
Of course, on the *really* personal opinion side of this, I think Microsoft has probably goofed when it comes to designing this thing to really last. It's overjuiced in my opinion, runs entirely too hot (and might be too fragile too) for constant use and bumping "by the kids" (hey, I'm a big kid, all that about more expensive toys, yada yada yada).
Man, just when I thought my little bubble world could be Microsoft free... I've already ditched the software side of things
Just some thoughts, nothing more.
Ok... Lets assume you don't like Microsoft. Now buy an X-Box and take it to your local True-Value and ask the paint guy to stick the X-Box in the vibrating/shaking-paint-mixer-thing. The X-Box will now have a ruined hard-drive. Return the X-Box and repeat untill you see Bill Gates bumming quarters for sex in your local slum.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Game systems are often sold at a loss. The games themselves are what the companies make money on. The notable exception is Nintendo, who has of yet to sell a system at a loss.
::yoink::
There's an Xbox that's broken and it isn't in any living room in America yet. The Xbox demo unit at a nearby Toys R Us store could not give consumers a taste of the new Microsoft console because of severe loading problems. The Xbox unit had no disc inside and displayed a menu screen to access the hard drive and CD player. But customers who tried to navigate through menus could do little else but wait while the machine tried to load the next menu. The audio that accompanied the menu screen transition skipped severely as well. After a three minute wait, the Xbox reached the next screen but continued to have load problems. Multiple resets also failed to resolve the problem. Soon after, a screen appeared that said the Xbox needed customer service repair. The screen provided a list of customer service phone numbers to contact.
Several Toys R Us employees did not know what went wrong with the Xbox demo unit that now carried a "Out of Order" sign. The store received their unit on Tuesday. The in-store demo units are believed to be actual finalized hardware that consumers will see at launch.
GA has received several reports on problems with in-store Xbox units.
An Xbox unit in the Germantown, MD Target store is reported to have "freezing" problems that requires employees to open the kiosk every 75 minutes to reset the console.
An Xbox unit in Software Etc. store in Souix Falls, SD was reported to skip, freeze, and have audio problems.
An Xbox unit at a Babbages store in Mobile, AL was reported to have similar problems.
A Babbages employee at the Dearborn, MI store reports that their Xbox unit does not function.
"Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says the employee.
Microsoft recently delayed the Xbox launch and will ship an unspecified number of units on November 15th. It's unclear whether load problems were a source for delay. A Microsoft representative was contacted for the story but did not reply at press time.
We'll have more as it develops, here at GA.
-- Marcus Lai
It often has uptimes of weeks (voluntary reboots only)
what this part?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Don't hold your breath. Emulating newer, more expensive hardware on older systems? If that were true, I'd be emulating my current PIII system on an old 286 rather than wasting the money upgrading.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
This is not an issue where "Microsoft is evil, let's make fun of them." This is a matter of public perception. Historically, they have made unstable operating systems. It doesn't take a "Linux Zealot" to disparage Microsoft products. It takes a track record of stability (insert favorite link to stable OS, be it BSD, Linux, Win2K etc. here) to change public perception.
The PS2 isn't the most reliable console.. in addition to DVD and PSX problems you mentioned, my PS2 decided to stop reading CDs a few months after the warranty ended (90 days? ack!). DVDs work fine, but most PS2 games are on CD which sucks. I had to open up the console and adjust a little potentiometer.. I guess it ups the laser power. it works great now, but I'm sure the laser is slowly burning holes through my discs. Consumers shouldn't have to choose between
A. Paying $300 for a defective console, and then paying $120 more for the privilege of mailing it to Sony for repair
and
B. Opening up the console and tinkering around inside
The people who develop for the X-Box will mainly be PC companies. These companies are new to the console market, when the game need to be ready when it comes out. No "ooops, sorry, here is the patch" are allowed!
Note that this is true for Microsoft as well...
I just think that the X-Box has not got the infrastructure to support this kind of working. PC users are used to Windows crashing and hanging, I am not so sure about console players!I for one, don't believe the X-Box will be the big success every one expects. It might be the fastest on the paper, but I still think the PS2 and Sony are going to eat X-Box and Microsoft alive in the console market!
I believe a gaming console is closer to a TV or VCR than to a PC, so I believe that Microsoft is going to fail in this new market!
Let's see what the situation is in one year!
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
If early generation games crash, Microsoft will have a perception problem regardless of who is at fault. The bar is set higher for entry machines these days. PlayStation and PlayStation II were not prone to crashing.
As someone already mentioned, comparing a kiosk that runs the early version of the console 24/7 in a poorly ventilated environment is different from comparing the final consumer product being used in regular conditions. As for Playstation II's not crashing, you must have a very short memory. I seem to remember headlines like PS2 glitches likely to drag down Sony's earnings , Sony finds glitches in three PS2 games and more when they first came out and look how successful PS2 is now.
I say, the jury is out until the holiday season is over before we can tell if X-Box will be a success or failure.
Even with a worst case scenario that the XBOX blows and we get good, cheap, small form factor boxes out of most PC vendors.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
http://www.penny-arcade.com/xboxfiles.php3
Hilight:
A friend of mine (which we will call "Dave" to keep his real name anonymous) works there and was assigned to the XBOX project a month ago. (shocking!) Now you may imagine it must been a really busy month building and testing XBOXes and stuff but.. can you handle the truth? can you?!
According to Dave he has spent the last month doing.. (dramatic pause!) absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact he has been lingering around watching videos on the net and trying to appear to be busy. Why? because they didnt have anything to build! the xbox design finally went into production last SUNDAY! (september 23 2001) (truly shocking!!)
Now what happens if you start production on Sunday on a Mexican factory ? (dramatic pause allowing you to answer) NOBODY is there to do it! only those who are unlucky enough to be there doing extra time, (like poor old Dave was) But they were ORDERED to do it anyway. No QA guys, no big bosses nothing, just a bunch of employees, trying to build a machine for the first time ever! (shocking, er, shocking!)
As you may have guessed things didnt went very smooth, as a matter of fact they didnt go very smooth at all! lots of machines were so defective they didnt pass the normal standards and went back to the line again, Dave and his friend expent hours after hours trying to build the damn boxes but they still were defective, to make a large awful history short they only were able to build 10 Xboxes that day! 10! and those XBOXES who did make it only passed standard tests! no other testing was applied!
A good picture of an Xbox crash:
http://mosfet.cjb.net/images/xbox.jpg
This is the first time a console has been launched in America first for quite some time. Usually the majority of the kinks are worked out when systems ship in Japan first and later in the US. We're experiencing virtual "beta hardware" testing firsthand with Xbox.
Second, there have been tons of reports of Xbox kiosks failing. Not just on GA. I've been reading a lot in the news and on many forums that Xbox kiosk failures are happening very frequently, far more than any PS2 failures. I have yet to hear about a single GameCube failure since it launched in Japan, too.
DOA3 has been reported to be heading to PS2 in the Official Playstation Magazine, along with a lot of Sega games that will merely premier on the Xbox.
Also, to clear something up, DOA3 does not look as good as Tecmo would want everyone to believe. Tecmo has a bad habit of releasing ultra high-res screens captured from developer kits (we're talking near 2000x pixel resolutions). They released beautiful but fake screenshots of DOA2: Hardcore on PS2 with tons of antialiasing. Then when you actually play DOA2 you'll find it's a jagged, shimmering mess. Sad to see that people are falling for the same trick again with DOA3.
Example:
Tecmo provided screenshot of DOA2:HC:
Touched up screen of DOA2
What DOA2 really looks like:
Real screenshot of DOA2
As you can see from these screenshots and movies not supplied by the overseers at Tecmo, the game doesn't really look that much different from DOA2.
Movie of DOA3
Screenshots of DOA3
Not to mention the DOA series' gameplay is very shallow and caters to button mashing, not nearly as deep as Tekken and Virtua Fighter. From the reports it sounds like DOA3 is a carbon copy of DOA2 with prettier graphics. Odd that the DOA series has suddenly become big-game despite lackluster sales on PS2/DC... Maybe because it's on Xbox, because if DOA3 were on PS2 it would be overshadowed by Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 2?
I'd say hold off on an Xbox until they work the kinks out and better games come out for it. The Dreamcast is dead but you can grab one for a very low price. The PS2 is the best platform for gaming now, there are so many good games out and coming out next month that my wallet is going to be screaming for mercy. GameCube looks solid but not quite as solid as the PS2. Wait and see if you are still uncertain.
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
The N64 is easy to crash...
For instance in Golden Eye, in two player mode (and possibly one) put a timed mine on glass. Shoot the glass until it breaks, then shoot the mine. It is a good move when you are losing!
There are a bunch of other ways to crash it also...
Gaming Age has a response from Microsoft about the broken XBox units.. Here's the scoop:
A Microsoft representative has responded to yesterday's FiXbox story. Here's the official company line on in-store Xbox units.
"With over 10,000 playable Xbox kiosks at retail over a month before launch, there are bound to be a few issues that crop up. Microsoft representatives are currently following up with retailers across the country to insure proper functionality of kiosks. Overall, the displays are working great and we are on track to achieve our goal of having 100% of the Xbox interactive displays working correctly and demonstrating the Xbox difference."
I work on the salesfloor at a Target store and regularly work electronics. It seems every time I pass by the damn X Box kiosk I need to unlock it and reset it. The first day we had it the screen showed "Please Wait..." on the screen for the entire day until we managed to get keys to the kiosk to reset it. From what I've seen the graphics don't seem all that great, and the controls are much less than great. I think I'll just stick to my computer.
I have a friend who is a game developer and who will remain anonymous (nda bleh). He has been working with the Xbox dev kit and recently has gotten his xbox test machines in order to test his levels and what not. He says there are no problems other than those which would be there while play testing levels.
I wouldnt count out the entire Xbox because some demo doesnt work. Could the code from the developer of that demo be crap? I have personally seen some of what will be on Xbox and it has some great potential as well as some top notch developers in line to make some great games.
Its too bad that when it crashes, and when it has problems, it will just be blamed on Microsoft. Oh well.
Anyone find it interesting that MS has chosen Flextronic's biggest rival to do repair servicing for the Xbox? (Solectron). Methinks Flextronics must have really #$*&ked up somewhere in the Xbox manufacturing for this to happen.
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http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
The DOS crashes, the crumby DOS command-line, the Windows 3.1 inability to run in 386 protected-mode, the daily Windows95 crashes... all due to heat.
Random Musings
Or it could be as successful as NeTraverse, Loki, Penguin Computing, or VA Linux! Rock on!
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
What you need to do to clear this up is goto www.microsoft.com/xbox and download the newest Service Pack (sp1) for the Xbox. This should clear everything up for you. We will be releasing some Hotpatches in the next couple of days as our beta testers get thier hands on the games. I am sorry I ment to say our customers get thier hands on the game. We will not be changing the release date we will just include the SP1 cd with the release.
Enjoy.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
You may need another one of those voluntary reboots soon since you posted the link on /.
Developers: We can use your help.
Yeah, and DOA2 was Dreamcast only.
There will be DOA3 for every platform, they'll just call it something like "DOA3 Special Edition" or something so that they can slap an XBox exclusive tag on it when XBox comes out and still get away with it. Like when "DOA2: Hardcore" came out for PS2. Either that, or it'll basically be the same game as DOA2.
The publisher will push the game for every nickel.
Error messages should also show the relevant parts of the EULA and have button saying "I Agree" instead of "OK".
What's the point of a computer in a console? If I wanted better games with better graphics, but didn't mind fighting with configuration, hardware specs, blah, I'd just play a computer game. A console is for those of us who want to smoke a bowl, grab a bag of Doritos, and veg out in front of the TV. It's designed to be FUN. To me, dealing with a hard drive, OS, etc. is exactly what I DON'T want from a game system. Screw that. All I need from my console is a place to put the CD/cartridge in, and a power button. Anything else is to damn complicated. I'll stick with the PS/2. Remember: "Puff, Puff Give!"
Are you saying that it crashes on you when you try to reboot it? I ran into that bug a lot in Win98SE, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think it may have already killed a number of kiosks, judging from early reports ;)
It even took the Gates family three tries:
William H Gates III
-D
Expect for the fact that we already had an N64 emulator for two years that performs at higher resolutions than an N64, and at times, faster than an N64.
So yes, there can be an xbox emulator, especially since, unlike the SGI, it's sooo close to a PC. Hey, we have Playstation, and MacOS/windows emulators as well. You haven't been following the emulation scene (or even looked at it) for the past 5 years have ya?
I have to tell you all, I was playing this and thank God it crashed... I don't know if you all know about this new ActiveDeath technology.
Also don't forget that you can preorder units now
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Sorry, that's a bad link (first Google link I got.) Here's the HLE site.
So, what happens when like 40% of these boxes get put down on to thick carpet and left turned on for days on end? Lemme guess... add-on fans? recall? No. I'll bet that they'll offer competetive trade-ins on Microsoft XboX XP release2.
(reminds me of that movie with Chevy Chase where they are selling super-duper spy planes that can do everything except when they get wet, they go haywire... someone shouts out, "have you ever heard of RAIN?!?"
well, i'd bet more on the 5-month old version of oddworld they were running as demos .. plus the older hardware.
.. but they're also not meant to be used for such long periods of time (granted, it should be expected in quality testing, but still) in such a small enclosure.
yes they run rather warm, etc
plenty of games have locked up before, and on other systems as well... but of course, since its slashdot, we should focus on microsoft and the evil from redmond.
no i'm not a microsoft supporter, yes i've played the console before, no it's not crashed on me.
wanna look at buggy, play anything by 3do.
They seem to largely take a beating and keep on ticking. When the PS2 pre-rollout occured, they had nearly all the kiosks working with no hitches. What's going on with the XBox is not going to fly with most of the market- no matter what people think otherwise.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You can see it running MAME here, btw....
http://www.otakunozoku.com/xbox/index.html
Rightly or wrongly, the general public associates crashing with Windows. Any above average occurance of crashes will doom this product, and be a black eye for Microsoft
I'm not so sure. The general public associates crashing with computers more than they associate it with Windows (they regard computer crashes as "just how computers are"). Thanks to Win9X, the general public has never had an expectation of computers running 24/7 anyway, and I think most people will quickly mentally adjust to accepting XBox crashes as "normal", even if they did not think of game consoles as being unstable before. At most LANs I've been to I've seen many people resetting their frozen Windows boxes, and nobody even bats an eyelid, its such a "normal", accepted part of using Windows; people have been conditioned to accept defective products as normal, and this sort of conditioning happens extremely quickly. You'll probably see some bitching in the media for a month (or two at most) while people are still a bit peeved, but after that people will have gotten used to the idea and will have accepted the fact that they can do nothing about it anyway.
Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and Me, as defective products, have been an incredibly huge "black eye" for Microsoft over the past decade, yet millions of people blithely accept it and buy it anyway. Its taken MS almost ten years to even bother to try to start producing a somewhat more stable consumer OS - they very obviously have NO sense of urgency in pushing a stable, reliable product out the door. I don't see MS giving a shit about it if the XBox is as unstable as Win9X.
Still, if the problem isn't the heat, then it shouldn't be too difficult for them to locate the problems and fix them in future XBox releases, and we can possibly expect them to even actually fix the problems during the first year (might be driver issues or hardware issues). People generally have very short memories, and if future releases are a lot more stable, then XBox will be a big success anyway, 99% of people will completely forget that the 1st generation was unstable, the other 1% will reminisce about it on online forums such as /.
Oh, you mean Dead On Arrival 3? Yeah, that would be X-Box only.
#o#
O Moo.
IIRC it's a MIPS chip in the PS2, hence Debians interest in keeping a MIPS branch running.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
And they hyped it like it was going to be the best thing ever. They were also so proud that they did this project in 14 months compared to the 30 months that it took Sony to develop the PS2. I certainly hope so. The XBox is built with off the shelf parts & modified win2k compared to the PS2 which started from scratch with a custom cpu, graphics, etc.
Hmm...I wonder if the problem lies with the Mexicans that they rounded up and trained to build the thing for $3-4 an hour or the stock compensated MS software/hardware engineers? Either way, I'm glad that the people will still be treated to the Microsoft experience that we all know and love.
I'm sure Sony and Nintendo are laughing their asses off over these reports.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
But it did!.. :) .. Read again.. I had one of these(SVI-728) and even one of the predesessors: SVI-328 wich was almost MSX. They were very nice and expandible machines for their times. Only thing that buged me was the 8-pixels at a time scroll that Konami always used... gaaaaaahhhhh!!!....
To continue the previous guys rant: MSX was actually kindof an open standard. There were specifications which several electronic manifacturers had agreed on and they could build their own computers with aditional memory, bells and whisles as long as they complied to the standard. MS wasn't that big at that time so they played nice in the small-middle league. But that's history. The standard was developed because all the different home computer systems that were evolving were uncompatible and it wasn't cost effective to make games and port them around. I smell some Java thinking there..... but then again it may be just me... :)
For more info: www.msx.org
Cheers...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Doesn't Apple bill everything they release as "The Best Thing EVER!" ?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"Hmm i was fairly sure that we were talking about emulating the xbox on the pc, not the ps2..."
Unless he was talking about an old IBM PS/2, apparently the starter of the thread wasn't.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Oh, it will definately be against the DMCA, but frankly, I couldn't care less. Stupid laws were meant to be broken.
There's an Xbox that's broken and it isn't in any living room in America yet. The Xbox demo unit at a nearby Toys R Us store could not give consumers a taste of the new Microsoft console because of severe loading problems.
Ah, but that's where you're wrong. It's doing an outstanding job of giving consumers a taste of Microsoft.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Well, it's kinda possible. It's normally called "renting" though :)
Assuming you have a patent license on the hardware, you could slap an EULA on that. That's no good when the patent expires though, which is a lot sooner than copyright expires. You could prolly put an EULA on the console's operating system, I guess. Ick.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
The Microsoft SF store closes Thursday. Reportedly Sony doesn't want them in their Metreon building when the X-Box launches, competing with the PlayStation Store.